Saturday, October 29, 2016

There are times when it's a good thing to acknowledge the parts of you that are ordinarily kept locked in a dark cupboard where they cannot distract you from functioning in the real world. *

This afternoon I did exactly that. For about 4.5 hours. Apparently.

By way of explanation let me write a short piece of pseudo-math so you understand...

Still not clear? OK, let me spell it out. I was updating my wargame book collection to account for some new arrivals and noticed one of the cover images was pretty ordinary. Colours were off, the pic was blurry, ragged edges, etc. etc. Clearly that wouldn't do so I fixed it.

Then I thought I'd better check the cover next to that one. Guess what? Rubbish! OK, that's fixed now. You can guess where this is going...

Anyway, safe to say I've not painted anything I was intending to paint. But at least IT can be put back in the cupboard for a while now and I can go back to playing nice with the general public. Mostly.

The miniatures are all wonderful Front Rank stuff from their Seven Years War range. I really enjoy painting them which is probably a good thing as I have close to another 150 in boxes to do (and that's just the infantry!)

On the painting table at the moment to follow these will be a small unit of hussars for my army along with some foot artillery. If you are interested in our imagination project you can visit the blog which contains background info, maps, and our desperate attempts at humour.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

The first of two regiments is near complete and requires only basing and flags (which I've already designed).

The second regiment is also coming along nicely and is really just awaiting buttons, bows and accoutrements to reach completion. Flags are ready to go for this unit too. I'll easily have this finished by the weekend and can base both up together.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

I've just discovered that Jeff Hudelson (aka Bluebear Jeff) passed away recently after a protracted fight against cancer. For those who don't know of Jeff he was a owner of the wonderful Saxe-Bearstein imaginations blog amongst other things.

During the course of my blogging experiences I've "met" an enormous list of talented, interesting and wonderfully generous individuals and Jeff sits right at the top of the pile. Always ready with advice and encouragement he embodied everything I have come to love in the hobby. It's hard to picture the imaginary 18thC without Jeff. He will be sorely missed.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

In fact, quite the opposite. Evan and I have been busy rekindling our long-neglected imagi-nations project... Die Kriege des Zobelshuts. To that end I have been painting away on a unit of infantry for Evan's fledgling army and I'm pleased to say they are nearing completion.

These are lovely Front Rank SYW Russians in 28mm and I'd almost forgotten what a joy they are to paint. I can see myself painting quite a lot of these in the near future, right up to and possibly including this year's instalment of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

Speaking of which, it's this time of year when our Northern cousins start thinking of long, cold nights spent cosy and warm with brush in hand. Down here of course we think of long, warm nights with the air conditioning cranked right up and brush in hand. And how do I know it's nearly that time of year? Well for one, my backyard is packed full of local avian fauna...

King parrots, Eastern rosellas, rainbow lorikeets and more (no, not a Norwegian Blue!). The buggers won't even wait until I've had a chance to hang the new bird feeder, preferring to eat from my hand or from the table. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than painting minis and feeding birds I suppose...

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Contrary to popular belief I've not been abducted by aliens or arrested for jaywalking. I have in fact simply been working my proverbial @ss off. Thankfully I've managed to snare a few days off and have returned to something like an even keel.

Gaming has been the big loser in terms of lack of free time unfortunately. However, tomorrow we've got a big game of Dystopian Wars: Fleet Action kicking off which looks to be great fun. Russ and I gave the rules a trial run last week and really enjoyed them. More on that post-game...

In amongst that I've also jumped on board a new blog-based game by Clint from Anything But a One. I played in his blog-based age of sail game a couple of years back and had an absolute blast. If anything I'm looking forward to this one even more as it gives me the opportunity to go mad with power and exercise my dictatorial instincts as Generalissimo Millsy, benevolent despot in charge of the Glorious People's Democratic Republic of Millsystan. What could possibly go wrong?

About Evan

I am a secondary contributor to the C&G blog, a long-time gamer (war-, board- and role-playing), a sporadic painter and modeller, recovering tartan addict, and now a grandfather. My life as a wargamer began nigh on 40 years ago, when I stumbled upon the local library’s Featherstone collection. This was the gateway for any number of associated hobbyesque interests, upon which I now blog from time to time...